I recently caused a commotion in the Monterey Herald’s letters section. On Tuesday, Aug. 29, the Herald printed a letter from Michael Baer of Monterey expressing his disappointment with the Mayors’ Water Authority, specifically their apparent inability to bring Cal Am’s ever-increasing water bills under control. So far so good.

Then in regard to Cal Am’s proposed desalination plant, Baer complained that the Water Authority could “not even be bothered to seriously consider a plan B, just in case this project goes the way of all previous Cal Am new water supply projects: failure.” This is where I saw a problem. Two, actually, but I chose to respond to only one.

The one I ignored was the alleged lack of a “plan B.” The Water Authority designated the project called Deep Water Desal as a backup plan. They directed the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District to help develop the project on a parallel track with Cal Am’s project in case the latter fails to materialize. Baer may not have known this because it has not been given much attention in the local press beyond an initial announcement a couple years ago.

But I felt his other claim deserved some attention, as it has become popular in recent years to blame Cal Am for every previous project failure regardless of the cause or who was actually in charge. So I wrote the following letter, which was published in the Herald on Aug. 31s.

Cal Am not to blame for past failures

Michael Baer’s Aug. 29 letter made reference to the “failure” of “all previous Cal Am new water supply projects.” Let’s get the history straight. Cal Am has been the lead agency on only one water project, the current desalination plan. Earlier projects that failed were overseen by public agencies, not Cal Am.

The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District was in charge of two viable projects, a desalination plant in Sand City and a new Los Padres dam on the Carmel River. Taxpayer advocates and environmental groups convinced voters that these projects were too expensive, environmentally damaging, and growth inducing so they were killed at the ballot box.

More recently Marina Coast Water District was the lead agency for the Regional Desalination Project. It involved three public agencies (none of which represented Peninsula ratepayers), each designated to operate separate components of a single desalination plant which would sell water to Cal Am. A conflict of interest problem brought the whole thing crashing down.

Cal Am took the reins only after it became clear that the public process was unable to deliver a water supply project. And while this may not be saying much, Cal Am has made more progress than any public agency ever did.

James B. Toy, Seaside

The very next day the Herald published a letter from Jan Shriner, a board member of the Marina Coast Water District. She didn’t mention my letter specifically, but it was clear she didn’t care for my choice of words as her first two sentences made clear:

“Cal Am is not a ‘lead agency’ of any project they propose. Cal Am can’t be the lead agency because they are the project proponent and a corporation.”

Evidently Shriner believes the term “agency” only applies to governmental organizations. Perhaps that is the case in her world of bureaucratic legalese, but my dictionary defines the word more broadly as “an organization, company, or bureau that provides a particular service,” so I believe I used the word correctly when I applied it to Cal Am. If I had said Cal Am was “in charge of” instead of the “lead agency on” only one project I might have avoided this little kerfuffle. Live and learn.

The remainder of her first paragraph said: “Cal Am was a partner in the Regional Desalination Project (RDP) along with Marina Coast Water District and the Monterey County Water Resource Agency (MCWRA). Cal Am pulled out of the project (and sued MCWD) reportedly because a MCWRA director was accused of conflict of interest. The former MCWRA director pled no contest to the charges.”

This seems to confirm my original assessment, but her choice of words spins the story more in Marina Coast’s favor. I suspect this was the motivation behind her letter as Marina Coast has been on the losing side of litigation with Cal Am in cases relating to both the failed RDP and Cal Am’s current project.

But she did make one valid point. In my last paragraph I said “the public process was unable to deliver a water supply project.” Shriner corrected me by pointing to the completion of a small desalination plant in Sand City and a project called Aquifer Storage and Recovery, which she said are both under the authority of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District. A pending recycled water project called Pure Water Monterey is a joint effort involving three public agencies. Those projects had crossed my mind when I wrote my original letter, but even when combined they don’t come close to fulfilling the need. However, they do help so for accuracy I should have said “the public agencies were unable to deliver a complete water supply solution.”

Moving along, on Sept. 2 and 3 two more letters appeared. The first was from Chuck Cech of Monterey, followed by Bill Hood, a part-time resident of Carmel. Both began with a brief reference to my letter indicating they didn’t like it. Then they changed the subject by asking me a series of long-winded questions about Cal Am’s handling of ratepayer money, which, of course, had nothing to do with the subject of my original letter except for inclusion of the water company’s name.

Along with their similar formatting, both letters seemed to imply that my unwillingness to blame Cal Am for the failure of three projects not under the company’s direct control somehow meant that I approve of everything Cal Am has ever done. The absurdity of that should be self-evident. And anyone who has read my previous writings about local water issues knows that at various times I have been both supportive and critical of Cal Am depending on the situation. I don’t know Chuck Cech, and he may never have heard of me, so he can be excused for not knowing that. Bill Hood, on the other hand, has no excuses. He and I have had several online discussions on this topic, including private e-mails and public comments on the pages of the Monterey Bay Partisan. He knows where I stand and it’s not where his very public letter placed me.

Since their two attack letters deviated so far from the subject of mine, I feel no obligation to answer their questions. But what the heck. I have nothing better to do right now, so I’ll give them a go.

Cech began with a note of gratitude: “Mr. Toy thank you for telling us Cal Am was not the lead agency on the three failed projects. However, Cal Am was a partner in each of these projects. They spent millions of dollars on each of these projects.”

It goes without saying that Cal Am was a partner since they would deliver any water produced by these projects. I assumed that was self-evident so I saw no need to deplete my 200-word allocation to explain that in my letter.

Then he launched his inquisition with this: “Every one of these projects failed. Does Cal Am have difficulty working with others, when it comes to controlling water delivery and cost on the Monterey Peninsula?”

Well, let’s see. I don’t recall any reports of strife between Cal Am and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, and the company seems to have a pretty cozy relationship with the Peninsula Mayors’ Water Authority (some say they’re too cozy). So, no, they don’t seem to have difficulty working with those agencies. As for Cal Am and Marina Coast, it’s no secret that their relationship has been strained since the collapse of the RDP program. Is Cal Am to blame? Maybe, but Marina Coast doesn’t have a particularly good reputation for cooperation. Two years ago then-Congressman Sam Farr suggested that Marina Coast should be disbanded because “they just haven’t conducted themselves in a very professional way. They’ve been fighting everybody else, and they’ve been sort of selfish and arrogant.” So there’s that to consider.

Cech continued….and continued:

“Did Cal Am conduct the necessary due diligence investigation of all aspects of these projects before agreeing to join them? Since Cal Am was not the lead agency on any of these failed projects, why did they spend a total of $34 million on them, without turning one shovel of dirt? Why is Cal Am not responsible for their cost of these projects? Why are ratepayers now paying $34 million to Cal Am plus interest for these failed projects?”

I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. Why don’t you ask Cal Am? While you’re at it, ask their lapdogs at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Hood had a similar line of questioning, but he opened by impugning my recollection of past events: “Mr. Toy relies upon his version of history to claim that Cal Am is not at fault with respect to the present condition of water supply efforts.”

Stop right there, Bill. It looks like you’re accusing me of making up alternative facts, Conway style. I take that very seriously because my reputation is at stake. If you are going to announce to the entire Peninsula that I have fabricated my own “version of history” contrary to actual history you need to explain your reasoning. If I have said anything that is untrue then by all means correct me (as Jan Shriner did). I’ll take my lumps, learn from it, and strive to do better next time. But please don’t suggest in public that I’m spreading misinformation then blow past the accusation by saying nothing more than…

“I do not agree with him, but even if I did, I would ask Mr. Toy these questions:”

And just like Cech , you abruptly change the subject. I call this diversionary tactic “debate and switch.”

Now to answer your question: “Yes, a fact-based opinion as to whether or not Cal Am is the villain in the Peninsula water scenario is necessary (and, frankly, is already on the record). But, why are you avoiding the ‘elephant in the room’ by ignoring the more immediate and concerning issue that has resulted from the historical and ongoing Cal Am/CPUC/local political support process that has created the highest cost of water in the country?

I’m not avoiding the subject. In my blog and in the comments section of the Monterey Bay Partisan I have used the word “unethical” to describe Cal Am’s recent retroactive rate increase. But I didn’t mention it in my letter because…

a.) Water rates were not the subject of my letter.

b.) The Herald’s 200-word limit prevented me from going off on a tangent about water rates.

c.) The subject of Cal Am’s high rates is discussed almost daily in the Herald’s letters section and frequently in the Monterey Bay Partisan. At this point there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said a dozen times already

Next question: “Even if you were right and I was wrong, doesn’t all of this tell you that something is amiss and has to be corrected?”

Yes.

“Do you really believe that the nation’s highest water costs are the result from other factors at play not related to Cal Am, et al?”

The question is a little confusing. Do Peninsula voters, the Water Management District, and the state water board’s cease and desist order qualify as “other factors” or do they get lumped in with “et al”? If they are other factors then my answer is yes. If they fall under et al then, no.

“Either way, are you satisfied with the current situation, and, if so, why?”

I’m not at all satisfied. In an earlier commentary here I likened our situation to a “freakin’ nuthouse.” As the years have passed there’s been more and more bickering and less and less cooperation among everyone involved.

Making matters worse, Cal Am squandered a lot of goodwill by imposing their retroactive rate increase on top of rate increases to build their desal plant. And whoever was the genius that guaranteed Cal Am a certain amount of profit from every capital investment, including unproductive ones, should be run out of town in a westerly direction. But when it comes to building a water supply project Cal Am strikes me as the only adult in the room. The company is under a lot of pressure to succeed, and they’re doing their darnedest, yet a lot of people seem determined to block their every move. I tell you again, local water politics is a freakin’ nuthouse!

The really frustrating part is that it was ridiculously easy to avoid the current situation, but we collectively chose not to. Had voters approved the local water district’s plans for a dam and desal plant combo in the 1990s, the mess we’re in now would never have happened. The state would likely never have imposed a cease and desist order on Cal Am pumping. Cal Am would never have gotten into a costly failed deal with Marina Coast, nor would the company be sinking buckets of capital into their own desal plant to be paid for with our water bills.

But Peninsula voters were led astray by various activist groups claiming that better, faster, and cheaper projects could be had if we just listened to them and ignored the advice of the bureaucrats. But their promises were empty. They never had a plan. In the last quarter century the names of the activists have changed, but their message is the same. They’re still promising better, faster, cheaper water if we just listen to them. Unlike the majority of voters I didn’t believe them then, and I certainly don’t believe them now.

So here’s where I stand. I don’t care if the water company is public or private. I don’t care if our new water supply involves a dam, a desal plant, water hyacinths, or icebergs towed in from Alaska. I don’t care if a desal plant is fed by slant wells, open ocean intakes, or a bucket brigade. I don’t care whose toes get stepped on, whose feelings get hurt, or whose ideology gets squashed. At this point I don’t even care how much it is going to cost. I just want it done!

James Toy lives in Seaside and is a regular contributor to the Partisan. This first appeared on one of his blogs, Mr. Toy’s Mental Notes.

Radio station format changes are not usually pleasant. For reasons known only to station owners, they tend to be drastic, abrupt, and unwelcome to loyal listeners. Friday evening, as I was getting ready to take a shower, I tuned the bathroom radio to KBOQ hoping to hear classic rock tunes, which is my favorite entertainment for my particular bathing ritual. But instead of classic rock, it was just … classical.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love classical music as much as any other form, but it was still kinda jarring to expect one thing and hear something very different. At first I thought it was some sort of feed mix-up, as this particular station had that happen once before. But, no, apparently KBOQ is now rebroadcasting San Francisco’s classical KDFC in Monterey. So KBOQ, originally known as “K-Bach,” has come back to its classical roots.

Five years ago Mapleton Communications abruptly changed KBOQ’s format from classical to classic hits, much to the dismay of everyone whose alarm clock radio was set to gently waken them to Mozart or Handel. Getting hit in the head by Led Zeppelin and the Doobies at 6:00 one Monday morning was an obnoxious surprise to say the least. A lot of long-time K-Bach listeners were very, very angry.

I was among them, though I kinda saw it coming. Mapleton didn’t have a clue as to how to run a proper classical station, a problem I described in detail in a 2011 Mental Note entitled “KBOQ bites the dust….again!”

KBOQ’s frequency is now owned by the University of Southern California, under the banner USC Radio Group. KDFC broadcasts full-time classical music on six frequencies covering territory from Big Sur to Ukiah. Locally it can be found on 103.9 FM (Monterey), 95.9 FM (Big Sur), and Comcast Cable channel 981. USC also runs five classical stations south of here in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs. It’s a pretty big outfit, especially for public radio.

KBOQ’s classical resurrection creates an interesting situation in the local radio market. You see, a year or so after K-Bach went rogue, a new commercial classical station KMZT, K-Mozart, came to town at 95.1 FM and neatly filled the void. The big question now is whether the Monterey Bay area can support two classical stations. We’ve never had more than one at a time.

Perhaps a clue can be found in an interesting twist to this story. You see, KDFC’s Big Sur frequency 95.9 FM was, until very recently, owned by K-Mozart! According to a USC Radio Group blog entry, K-Mozart’s parent company, Mount Wilson Broadcasters, donated their Big Sur station to USC “in order to ensure these important communities had a strong classical music service.” Perhaps this is a signal that KMZT also has a format change in the works. We’ll have to wait and see.

James Toy lives in Seaside and is a regular contributor to the Partisan. This first appeared on one of his blogs, Mr. Toy’s Mental Notes.

I love Carmel. I was born in Carmel while it still had its own hospital and maternity ward. Carmel is in my blood, and like many people I never want it to change. Of course, over the last 56 years it has, in many ways, changed quite a bit, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Yet it is comforting that many of the village landmarks I grew up with, from the Pine Inn to Bruno’s Market, still look pretty much the same as they did in my earliest childhood memories.

For some strange reason a single building on the corner of 7th and Dolores seems to be the focal point for the local political drama over keeping Carmel Carmelish. Several years ago it was suggested that a Long’s Drug store might occupy the former bank building, but that was shot down by the anti-chain-store crowd whose short memory forgot that the townsfolk fought to preserve a similar chain store that closed its Ocean Avenue location just a decade earlier.

More recently there were arguments over whether the relatively new (1970s) building was architecturally significant and worthy of preservation or is a disposable piece of modern architecture improperly imposing itself on Carmel’s classic storybook charm. After that was settled in favor of keeping the building, there were more arguments about what sort of business should occupy the space.

Eventually it became an “event center” for special events. Then early this year the owner thought a market and deli would be a nice fit for the building, but the machete- and pitchfork-wielding townsfolk thought it looked too much like a dreaded fast food operation.

Now the owner wishes to open a restaurant there. A fairly large, but non-threatening restaurant. That should be fine, right?

Apparently not if it has a display case with two cash registers. According to competing restaurant owner Rich Pepe, that makes it not a restaurant but a “food court.” And because food courts are typically associated with big suburban shopping malls, a display case in a restaurant is a direct threat to Carmel’s way of life (Patisserie Boissiere excepted).

According to Pepe, “Many of us feel a very large, 100-seat cafeteria/food court operation in Carmel will only encourage day-trippers and damage Carmel’s fine reputation as a unique village.”

Putting aside the obvious snobbery, I think it’s safe to say that the duration of a visitor’s stay will never be influenced by the mode of food service offered on the SE corner of 7th and Dolores. The decision to come to Carmel for a day, a weekend, or a week is typically determined by such factors as personal schedules, how far they have to travel (someone from San Jose will likely return home in the evening while a visitor from Omaha would probably stay a night or two), and the purpose of their visit.

Personally, I think a food court would make a wonderful social hub well suited to the Carmel lifestyle. I’m not talking about the kind with cheap formula fast food, plastic chairs, Formica tables, and sporks, but rather a comfortable dining space surrounded by local vendors offering coffee, pastries, sandwiches, soups, and such. It could be a place where locals could stop for an easy lunch or snack en route to the post office or library. A place where friends and neighbors could run into each other by chance and enjoy each other’s company in a relaxed setting. In my vision it also has a fireplace.

But neither Pepe’s nightmarish day-tripper attractant nor my vision for a community social hub is what’s being proposed. It’s just a restaurant with a harmless display counter. The problem isn’t the display case. The problem is that Carmel’s regulations are so blasted rigid and formulaic now. Any deviation from what is legally considered Carmelish is treated as a crime. They have eliminated any possibility of creativity in business management or aesthetic design. The irony, of course, is that Carmel’s charm was developed by people who came here so they could be free to express their creativity in art, architecture, and business as they, not society, saw fit. I think they would be horrified by Carmel’s regulations today.

James Toy lives in Seaside and is a regular contributor to the Partisan. This first appeared on one of his blogs, Mr. Toy’s Mental Notes.

On Wednesday the Pacific Grove City Council approved a special election, scheduled for April 19, asking the townsfolk to change the zoning of the American Tin Cannery site to allow for a new hotel on the property. The hotel, code-named “Project Bella,” is being billed as an economic necessity for PG, and a much better use of the site than the existing indoor retail mall that never lived up to expectations.

Project Bella may indeed be the best thing to happen to Pacific Grove since Holman’s department store, but why is a special election necessary when a regularly scheduled election will come just eight weeks later? The answer is simple. A special election favors the developer.

Special elections tend to attract fewer voters, those most interested in the subject, so the results may not reflect the town as a whole. Also, it gives voters less time to scrutinize and discuss the project, giving the developers more control over the information presented to voters. It therefore comes as no surprise that the developer, Domaine Hospitality Partners, is perfectly happy to pay the full cost of the election, about $40,000, according to KSBW News.

So far Domaine has had complete control over the messages to the community, and they’ve painted an awfully rosy picture of their hotel plan. They boast that Bella “will be designed, built, and furnished to the highest standards shared by only a very few of the world’s best hotels,” a tall claim considering even the local competition, much less the world. And, strangely enough, they expect to fulfill their promise of unparalleled luxury with an architectural design reminiscent of the industrial history of the cannery building that currently occupies the site.

Which brings me to my biggest concern. Both the developer and civic leaders who are supporting Project Bella have been pretty vague about the fate of the historic American Tin Cannery building, which turns 89 this year. It was the only Cannery Row cannery built in Pacific Grove, and arguably has the most attractive facade of any cannery on the row.

After the local sardine industry shriveled, the building was occupied by NAFI (National Automotive Fibers. Inc.), a division of Chris-Craft Industries. NAFI (pronounced “naffy”) manufactured carpeting for automobiles in the facility for many years. When I was third-grader at Carmel River School, locally made NAFI carpeting was installed in our classrooms. After NAFI went the way of the sardines, the American Tin Cannery entered its retail phase, first as a big box type store called Ardan and later the outlet mall we all know but rarely patronize.

I know this little bit of history because my dad was an accountant at NAFI in the 1960s. His office was near the base of the smokestack a few steps from Eardley Avenue. One day he gave me and my mother a tour of the plant. I think it was just after quittin’ time because there were very few people there. I remember the cavernous space with north-facing windows built into the angled roof that provided a source of light. On the floor I saw rows and rows of industrial strength sewing machines, the kind you see today only in documentaries about Chinese textile mills. It made a strong impression on my 7-year old mind.

Descriptions of the proposed hotel in the local press have been hazy as to how much, if any, of the existing building would be incorporated into the new. Most reports ambiguously say the hotel will be built “at” the American Tin Cannery. Nowhere have I seen it stated explicitly that the American Tin Cannery will be demolished, but neither has it been said the building will be spared. One recent report suggested that the hotel will be an “homage” to the cannery. An artist’s rendering of the interior displayed on the developer’s website shows features that look similar to the existing structure, but the aerial site plan shows the hotel with a very different footprint, most of it set well back from the street. Curiously missing from the website are any street-views of Project Bella.

Put it all together and it becomes evident that the American Tin Cannery will be no more. Yet for some reason PG preservationists don’t seem to have picked up the signals yet. If the demolition of an old pump house could attract their attention, the destruction of the American Tin Cannery should raise alarms like mad, yet they haven’t said a word.

Do Pacific Grove voters really know what they’ll be getting on that property? I suspect Project Bella supporters don’t want Pagrovians to know too much just yet. It appears they want to lure voters to the special election with glowing promises of economic benefits and unsurpassed luxury before the townsfolk realize they must sacrifice a unique piece of the town’s heritage – hence the need to conduct the vote two months before the scheduled June 7 election.

James Toy lives in Seaside and is a regular contributor to the Partisan. This first appeared on one of his blogs, Mr. Toy’s Mental Notes.

What’s up with Carmel these days? The City Council has engaged in some very un-Carmelish behavior of late.

About this time last year the council began a six-month experiment with parking meters, devices long considered to be the ultimate insult to the dignity of the village. The council hoped to demonstrate that meters would solve a long-standing problem of too many cars and not enough parking spaces.

Parking “kiosks” (single meters designed to serve an entire block) were installed up and down Ocean Avenue to see what would happen. As I expected, locals avoided them by parking on every other street where parking was still free, while tourists, who didn’t know any better, paid up. But city officials didn’t interpret the results that way. They saw that Ocean Avenue parking spaces opened up more often and, based on that criteria alone, they declared the experiment a success. When almost nobody else agreed with that two-dimensional analysis, the city removed the meters. End of story.

This past week the council ventured down a similarly dubious path. By a slim 3-2 majority they approved the first reading of a controversial ordinance to declare beach fires a “public nuisance,” which would bring an abrupt end to a century-old social tradition. With a single vote on a simple subject, the council has set a course destined to leave a lot of their constituents very upset. Unless at least one of the three shows a willingness to compromise, the ship called City Hall is going to run aground on Carmel Beach as early as next month.

Beach fires have become a bit of a problem mainly due to their increasing numbers. Carmel is one of the few places left on the California coast where your family and friends can still gather around a fire to toast hot dogs and marshmallows on a foggy summer evening. For that reason people flock to Carmel beach to enjoy this simple social ritual that humans have engaged in since caveman times. Lots of people mean lots of fires. Lots of fires mean lots of smoke and lots of black ashes discoloring Carmel’s famous white sand. Too much of a good thing has gotten very messy.

Earlier this year the city had a plan to manage fires by placing 26 fire rings along the beach between 10th and 13th Avenues. The rings would contain the filthy ashes, and the number of fires allowed at any one time would be limited. Still, I thought 26 was too many. After all we’re still talking about eight to nine fires per block. In years past a busy night might see maybe a dozen fires, so 26 seemed overly generous. Unfortunately, some folks took the opposite view and decided 26 was too restrictive. They appealed the plan to the California Coastal Commission hoping to get a better deal. The CCC will consider the appeal next week.

Meanwhile, the city council grew concerned that the smoke from so many fires might get the city in trouble with state and regional air quality bureaucrats. Last summer an air quality monitor placed at a nearby residence detected unhealthy levels of smoke on just two nights, once in June and again on the 4th of July. Apparently something in that smoke made city officials go batshit crazy and they abruptly changed course.

The city passed a temporary emergency ordinance banning fires on weekends until proper studies could be done to find the best solution. But the Coastal Commission didn’t think two nights of bad air over three months was sufficient justification to declare an emergency. They told the city not to enforce the ban. Miffed city officials essentially said “screw you” to the Coastal Commission and escalated the conflict beyond reason. They decided they could make an end run around the Coastal Commission ruling by declaring beach fires a “public nuisance.” With Mayor Jason Burnett leading the charge, they drafted the ordinance to permanently ban all fires. This may have satisfied their egos, but it has ignited the anger of beachgoers.

It’s troubling enough to see the council so willing to dismantle an important component of Carmel’s unique social culture. Even more disturbing is how they are doing it, effectively bypassing the normal avenues of forming public policy. The proper course, which the city was following until recently, is to gather public input, study various alternatives, find ways to mitigate potential problems, and develop a plan. It’s a somewhat tedious process, but it usually works out for most of us. The 26 fire ring proposal grew out of that process. Now, it has all been chucked out the window and a total ban is being imposed on the community with minimal debate. In fact Mayor Burnett has made it clear he is not open to alternatives. In Wednesday’s Herald he was quoted “For me it comes down to the health impact of the smoke, for me, it’s an area where I can’t compromise.”

Yet the smoke reached unhealthy levels on only two evenings. Two. In fact, the proposed ordinance doesn’t cite fires as the problem per se, only the “excessive number of beach fires during peak use periods” such as Independence Day festivities. The key to a fair and reasonable solution, then, is not a complete ban but a limit on the number of fires allowed at any given time.

I think limiting fires to about 10 or 12 fire rings is a fair number, especially if they must be confined to the three-block segment of the beach where fires are currently allowed. Some experimentation with their placement might further reduce smoke drift into the surrounding neighborhood. These steps should limit smoke to historical levels, which folks seemed comfortable with in the past. The rings would confine coals and ashes to keep the beach clean and safe. To keep things simple, fire rings would be available on a first-come first-served basis, much as with picnic tables in parks. though a reservation system might be helpful for busy holiday weekends. I think this is a reasonable compromise, and should be satisfactory to almost everyone.

The question is whether Carmelites can convince at least one more council member that compromise is reasonable. I fear the mayor is a lost cause. That leaves Victoria Beach and Ken Talmage, but they’re coming across as more fearful of what the air quality bureaucrats might do than they are of the townsfolk they supposedly represent. As with the parking meter program, the council majority seems primarily interested in the technical aspects of the issue while disregarding the social and cultural implications of their actions. In a tightly knit community like Carmel, with deep-rooted social traditions, that is a huge political mistake.

About three years ago I posted a “Pocket Guide to Local Water Politics” to help poor confused people like me sort out the crazy quilt of interlaced complexities of competing interests. A lot has changed since then, so I thought an updated guide would be in order. Unfortunately, things have become so insanely complex that I must increase the guide to briefcase size.

Background:

In the mid 1970s California experienced a severe drought. Here on the Monterey Peninsula, residential water users were rationed to 50 gallons per person per day, a huge inconvenience in the days of 3-gallon-per-flush toilets and 5-gallon- per-minute shower heads.

In 1978 the state Legislature created the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, commonly known as the “Water Board,” to spearhead conservation efforts and find and construct a new water supply so we would never have to go through that again. Nearly 40 years and three droughts later, almost nothing has been done. Despite the cries of “not me” echoing throughout the region, pretty much everyone is to blame.

Here are the players. Their specific names have been removed to protect me from the guilty:

Monterey Peninsula Voters who, in the mid 1990s, voted down two perfectly good water supply projects that would have solved our problems long ago.

Important details:

The projects were a modest desalination plant in Sand City and a New Los Padres Dam on the Carmel River.

The desal plant would have provided us with a drought-proof supplement to sporadic rainfall. It was rejected by voters in 1993 on the grounds that it would cost much more per unit of water than a new dam, which they said was just around the corner.

The dam would have provided ample storage to serve the population and help the poor fish by restoring year-round flows to the overdrawn Carmel River. It was rejected in 1995 because voters perceived it as too expensive, growth-inducing, and environmentally damaging.

Had local voters approved both of these projects, we would not be in the legal mess we are in today and the current drought would be just a minor inconvenience.

What in blazes were they thinking?!?!?!?

For the record: I voted for both projects.

A state water board that determined that the local private water company (see below) was legally entitled to only one third of the water it was pumping out of the ground in Carmel Valley, the Peninsula’s primary source of water for over 100 years. The board issued a cease and desist order (CDO) to take effect at the end of 2016.

Points to ponder:

Everyone on the Peninsula is desperate to find a new water supply.

There is a general consensus that a desalination plant is the best option.

If we don’t meet the deadline, the private water company will be forced to pay huge fines, or limit water deliveries, or some combination thereof. Nobody knows how the state will enforce the order.

Oh crap: We’re not going to meet the deadline.

The county, which arbitrarily passed an ordinance saying that any desalination plants built in Monterey County must be publicly owned.

But wait:

There is some question as to whether the county has legal jurisdiction over utility companies. Some say that is purely the domain of the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC). If that is true, the county’s ordinance is probably not enforceable.

The county doesn’t seem to have a problem with private ownership of the Carmel Valley dams (see below), so why does it care if the same company owns a desal plant?

And why single out water? If the same logic applied to other utilities, then electrical generation plants should also be publicly owned, right? But that’s a topic for another day.

The local water board, which devised and presented two water supply projects to Peninsula voters for their approval.

The results:

Voters rejected both projects (see above).

After voters rejected the two projects, the water board could find no credible alternatives and has basically been adrift ever since.

The water board has since developed a reputation, not fully deserved, as a do-nothing agency.

Throughout its history, the water board has been accused of abusing its authority over new water uses to control development on the Monterey Peninsula.

Its reputation was so bad that in 2002 Monterey Peninsula voters passed an advisory measure asking the state Legislature to dissolve it. Presumably, had the Legislature complied – which it didn’t – that would have left the private water company (see below) on its own to develop a water supply.

5. The private water company, which has been the Monterey Peninsula’s water provider for as long as water has been needed here.

Some facts:

Although The company has “California” and “American” in its name, the parent company is actually based in Germany. (CORRECTION: That is no longer true. It was reorganized as a U.S. company.)

In the first half of the 20th Century, the private water company built two dams on the Carmel River called San Clemente and Los Padres.

The company has been criticized for not dredging the two reservoirs periodically, instead letting sediment build up, which significantly reduced their capacity.

The San Clemente reservoir filled almost completely with sediment. The dam is currently being dismantled at customer expense.

For over three decades the company let the local water board take the lead in finding a new water supply project.

When the local water board failed to deliver, and with the cease-and-desist order deadline fast approaching, the company entered into a complex agreement with a neighboring water district (see below) to build a Regional Desalination Project (RDP) outside the neighboring private water company’s service area.

After the agreement with the neighboring water district collapsed (see below), and with the cease-and-desist order deadline imminent, the private water company understandably gave up on working with incompetent public bureaucracies and decided to build a desal plant on its own. Plans call for it to be built within the boundaries of the neighboring water district, which has generated considerable friction between the company and the neighboring water district.

The most optimistic construction schedule shows the company’s desal plant won’t be operational until 2020, thus missing the deadline by about four years.

The company has skirted the county requirement that desal plants be publicly owned through some sort of agreement that resolved whatever disputes arose between the company and the county during the failure of the Regional Desalination Project.

The company hopes to employ “slant well” technology to draw ocean water into the desal plant. Slant wells are drilled near the shore at an angle (as opposed to straight down) so that the intakes are located in the soggy sand just below the ocean floor.

Slant wells are preferred over “open ocean” intakes by environmental groups and regulatory agencies because they will not suck up ocean life along with the seawater. However, critics in the neighboring water district believe the slant wells will also draw some fresh water from the neighboring district’s groundwater supplies, and they, along with a neighboring property owner, are accusing the private water company of stealing their water.

Earlier this year the company drilled a slant well for testing purposes to determine if the technology will work as expected. The test well was challenged in court by the neighboring water district, but a judge allowed the test to proceed.

The slant well testing is so far inconclusive. The company discovered a drop in groundwater levels in the neighborhood of the test well. It is not yet known if the drop was caused by the slant well or nearby agricultural wells. The company says it is the latter while the neighboring water district says “Nya, nya, we told you so!” The test well is currently shut down pending further analysis by actual scientists.

Egg on their faces: It turns out that one of the consultants hired by the company to analyze the test well results has a conflict of interest in that he also holds some patents on slant well technology.

The neighboring water district came into the picture a few years ago with a proposal to save the private water company from the ineffective water board. It was called the Regional Desalination Project (RDP).

Here’s where everything went completely bonkers:

The RDP plan involved three public agencies. 1. The neighboring water district, which would own the desal plant, 2. A county water agency, which would own the pipes to get ocean water into the plant, and 3. A regional wastewater agency, which would be in charge of the salty residue discharged back into the ocean.

The private water company would be the plant’s primary customer. The neighboring water district would also use some of the water produced for its own needs.

The neighboring water district would have control over the plant management and operations.

The private water company’s customers would pay for the plant, but have no significant influence over its management. This raised alarm bells among Monterey Peninsula residents who felt that they would be at the mercy of the neighboring water district, which at the time was widely regarded as so dysfunctional that the Peninsula’s useless water board looked like King Solomon by comparison.

The California PUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates had similar concerns.

Due to the sheer complexity of the plan and the distrust it generated among Peninsula residents, the project probably would have collapsed under its own weight eventually. Its demise was mercifully hastened when it was discovered that a key player in the project’s development had a serious conflict of interest in that he was working for both a public agency and a private contractor advising the same agency.

As I predicted in 2010 the RDP players are now suing each other, trying to recover the money they spent on this unworkable scheme. Each side claims the others were at fault, and nobody is taking responsibility themselves.

Meanwhile, the neighboring water district, being no longer on speaking terms with the private water company, is trying every legal trick in the book to stop the private water company from building its own desal plant within the boundaries of the neighboring water district.

Last May the local Congressman actually suggested that the neighboring water district be disbanded because “They just haven’t conducted themselves in a very professional way. They’ve been fighting everybody else, and they’ve been sort of selfish and arrogant.”

Isn’t this fun???

Only if you can watch it from a safe distance!

After the RDP collapsed it became evident that none of the relevant public agencies was competent enough to find a new water supply. So the six mayors of the six Monterey Peninsula cities got together and formed a plan: Create a new public agency! They call it the water authority, and the mayors put themselves in charge.

Their mission:

Get all the players, the public water agencies, the private water company, the business association, and the citizen groups into one room and hash out a solution agreeable to everyone. It’s sorta like herding cats, and has turned out to be just as effective.

The authority analyzed three competing desal plant proposals (see above for one and look below for the other two) and voted the private water company’s project as Most Likely To Succeed. This pleased the private water company (see above) and local business association (see below), and really upset the citizen groups (see below) and the neighboring water district (see above).

Just to be safe, the authority declared the Deep Water project (see below) as its second favorite. The mayors directed the water board to oversee the Deep Water project on a parallel track as a “Plan B” in case the private water company’s project fell apart. Good idea.

The authority is also exploring the best ways to grovel before the state sater board to request an extension of the CDO deadline.

A prominent local businessman who, for several years now, has claimed to have the perfect desal plant idea called he People’s Project.

All you need to know:

It would be built on property he owns adjacent to the Moss Landing power plant.

It would use existing seawater intakes (built in the 1940s) used by a previous business on the same site. The prominent local businessman theorizes that using existing intakes will be okey-dokey with the ocean protection people.

One problem: His property is currently under threat of foreclosure.

Deep Water Desal is the “Plan B” of the water authority.

The basics:

That’s actually its real name. I couldn’t come up with a generic pseudonym.

It is so named because the ocean intakes would be located in a deep part of the ocean where fewer critters live to get sucked into the pipes. Its proponents believe that this will be acceptable to the ocean protection people, but nobody knows for sure.

According to recent news reports, the project directors claim that they can get the plant up and running sometime in 2017, missing the CDO deadline, but only by a few months instead of several years. However, their website does not show a timetable, not even on their “Costs & Timeline” page, which only mentions costs and financing. The project does not yet have an environmental impact report (EIR), which will take the better part of a year to prepare. Construction can’t begin without it.

… 2017 is only 16 months away!

A handful of citizen groups are also in the mix. Their favorite activity is writing mind-numbing guest commentaries in the local newspaper, almost every week for the past few years.

What they say and do:

They say the private water company is a greedy, heartless corporation that is only interested in profits and doesn’t care about its customers.

They blame the private water company for all of our water problems. To justify that conclusion they have implied that Peninsula voters, the water board, and the neighboring water district are all perfectly angelic innocent victims of the company.

They are absolutely convinced, and believe it should be obvious to everyone, that only thing that will save us from the private water company is a public takeover of the private water company.

Twice in the last ten years they have put measures before voters to study the feasibility of having the local water board take over the private water company. Yup, we’re talking about the same local water board the voters voted to remove from the face of the Earth (see above). Needless to say, both ballot measures failed.

Members of these groups reluctantly admit that they underestimated the depth of public animosity towards the local water board, but they still insist that the measures would have passed if the private water company hadn’t spent so much money on the NO side of the campaign.

Golly, they’re so cute when they fantasize.

They oppose the private water company’s desal plant, and support the other two (see above).

They declared that the private water company’s slant well test would be a failure even before the test well was drilled. They have even accused the private water company of knowing it would fail before it was drilled. When asked for evidence they tend to get unusually quiet.

To their credit they have rightly questioned why businesses pay lower water rates than residential customers.

But they’re into conspiracy theories. For example, because the mayors’ water authority supports the private water company’s desal plant, they say that the authority is in cahoots with the company to keep business rates low and residential rates high.

They’re really into conspiracy theories. They say the conflict of interest problem that killed the neighboring water district’s Regional Desal Project was deliberately manufactured by the private water company to kill the RDP and leave the company free to build its own plant so it could keep all of the profits. Problem with the theory: The company was free to join or not join the RDP agreement, so there was no need to resort to devious means to get out of it.

They insist that if the state Water Board imposes fines on the private water company for failing to meet the CDO deadline, then the company’s stockholders should pay the fines, not water customers. Their reasoning: We all know that the private water company is to blame for everything, and the voters and local water board are completely innocent. Right? Right?

Finally, there is a business association, which is solidly backing whatever water project looks most promising at any given point in time.

More details:

Their spokesperson is a well known general manager of a prominent Monterey hotel.

The association is scared to death of the CDO because if water deliveries are forcibly curtailed, then many, many businesses would be forced to cut back services and eliminate jobs. Hotels and restaurants would be especially hard hit. It’s a legitimate concern.

Even if the state Water Board imposes fines instead of water cutbacks, the cost of water would increase the cost of doing business, costs which may have to be passed onto customers.

So there it is, the whole situation in a nutshell. No, that’s wrong. It’s a freakin’ nuthouse! Don’t feel bad if you don’t understand it. It is all quite incomprehensible to any sane person. If, by chance, you think you do understand it you are advised to seek psychiatric help as soon as possible.

Last night I was was watching KYMB, the local MeTV outlet, when I saw a commercial for the Monterey Herald. It started out saying that it was time to start reading the newspaper again, and to encourage you to subscribe they offered a free trial. Sort of.

“Try for a free week” the announcer said, three times. Not “try it free for a week,” or “try it for a week, free.” Nope, you can call the number and try for a free week. You may get it, you may not, but you can certainly try!

This isn’t the first time the Herald has employed atrocious grammar to sell its own product. Early last October the Herald ran a print ad promoting a new advertising partnership with Google. In big letters it said “Are customers find YOU or your COMPETITOR?” It ran for almost a week and never was corrected.

The Herald has become its own worst enemy. After all, a newspaper depends on words to communicate the daily news. If they don’t use them properly in their first point of contact with potential customers, they aren’t likely to attract the new subscribers they desperately need.

James Toy lives in Seaside and is the proprietor of three blogs (links below). This first appeared on Mr. Toy’s Mental Notes.

Although I am generally supportive of California American Water’s effort to build a desalination plant to solve the Monterey Peninsula’s water problems, I have less faith in Cal Am’s public relations department. They just don’t seem to grasp the basic realities of modern household plumbing and water use.

About two and a half years ago in a blog post, I challenged Cal Am’s excuses for sudden unexplained spikes in some people’s water bills. Cal Am argued that they were caused by “silent” toilet leaks, which is baloney because toilet valves made in the last 30 years or so are designed to make noise when there are even small leaks.

Sometime between then and now Cal Am ran ads about fixing shower leaks. They had a photo of an attractive lady taking a pipe wrench to a shower head, which was oh so very wrong! Shower leaks, like all faucet leaks, occur at the valves – the handles where you turn the water on – not where the water comes out. Pipe wrenches don’t work on faucet valves, and if you used one on a shower head you’d scratch the finish so badly you’d have to buy a new one.

The latest bit of nonsense was printed on a flyer that came with our last water bill. The theme of the flyer was that saving water also saves energy. It had the usual advice, take shorter showers, install more efficient appliances — most of it common sense stuff that’s been drilled into our heads since the 1970s.

But one piece of advice made absolutely no sense. It said “Run the dishwasher with a full load once a week instead of twice and SAVE.” Now, if they had said “Run your dishwasher only when it’s full and not half empty” that would have made sense. But setting a once a week schedule is ridiculous.

Our two-person household packs a full dishwasher about every three days. If we only ran it once a week we’d have an enormous ceramic backlog in short order! Families with children probably fill their dishwashers at least every two days and maybe even daily. I think only a single person living alone could manage to get by on Cal Am’s suggested dishwashing schedule. Perhaps that is who wrote it, a single person. If anyone takes Cal Am’s suggestion seriously, they’ll probably hand wash everything that doesn’t fit in the weekly load and end up using more water while believing they’re using less.

Dishwashers aren’t even big water users. The water-saving dishwasher we bought last year uses only four gallons per load, every three days, which in our household works out to just two thirds of a gallon per person per day. Our old “wasteful” dishwasher used a little over five gallons per load. Even that was a wee bit less than a gallon per person per day. Compare that to most modern toilets, which use 1.5 gallons per flush, or a “water saving” shower head that pours out anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 gallons per minute, and you realize that dishwashers are nothing to worry about.

Speaking of showers, one of the best ways to save water is to install a flow control valve between the pipe coming out of the wall and your shower head. It allows you to quickly and easily adjust the amount of water from full blast down to a tiny dribble or anywhere in between depending on your need of the moment. You can save a good deal of water this way without having to rush your cleansing ritual. Since it doesn’t require fiddling with the faucet a shower head valve maintains a constant temperature and you don’t have to waste time and water readjusting it every time you turn the water back on. Used properly, you’d probably save enough water with a single shower to run the dishwasher two or three times. The valves are pretty easy to install even if you’ve never worked on plumbing before. Just don’t use a pipe wrench! A crescent wrench will do nicely. I’ll leave the full installation instructions to the hardware sales people. That’s what they get paid for.

James Toy is a Carmel native, currently living in Seaside, who occasionally gets involved in local political matters. He is the creator of a community oriented website called The Monterey Peninsula Toy Box at www.montereypeninsula.info. This commentary also appears on that site.